Los Angeles, CA— The Oxy women's basketball team celebrated the academic and athletic careers of their senior student-athletes on Saturday night. A pre-game ceremony honored #24 Toni Thompson, #3 Gabriela Etopio, #5 Amaia McCoy and team manager Ariel Lashinksy for their accomplishments on and off the court during their time at Oxy. 

In the game against Redlands, the Tigers were down early but a 6-0 run with layups from Etopio, McCoy, and Ainsley Shelsta put the Tigers up 8-7. Layups from McCoy and Michelle Lagunas-Monroy had the Tigers up 12-9 and they would be up 15-11 at the end of the 1st quarter.

Redlands opened the 2nd quartet with a 9-2 run to take a 20-17 lead but Ainsley Shelsta responded by scoring layups on back to back Oxy possessions to give Oxy the lead back at 21-20. After Paige Yasukochi made a layup to close the 1st half the score was tied at 27 heading into halftime.

Oxy opened the 2nd half with Toni Thompson putting together a personal 4-0 to give Oxy a 4 point lead. The Tigers' lead was up to 6 points after Thompson went 2-2 after being fouled with 5:32 left in the 3rd quarter. A layup from Shelsta had the Oxy lead at 39-32 but the Bulldogs put together a 6-0 run to get within 1 point of the lead. 

Paige Yasukochi scored the next 4 Tiger points and then Thompson had a layup to get the lead back to 45-40 in favor of the Tigers and the 3rd quarter would come to a close with Oxy up 45-41.

Lagunas-Monroy started the 4th quarter with a layup for Oxy, but Redlands went on a 6-0 run to tie the game at 47. Shortly after, Paige Yasukochi knocked down a jumper to give Oxy a 3 point lead with 6 minutes left in the game. 

Redlands would take a 1 point lead after converting an and-1 opportunity with 2 minutes left in the game. Oxy would come up just short in the game after the Bulldogs secured a rebound off of a Tiger miss to secure the win by a score of 59-54.

Despite the loss, Oxy finished SCIAC play with an impressive 11-5 conference record and a 20-5 overall record, good enough to earn the Tigers the 3rd seed in the SCIAC postseason tournament. The Tigers will travel to the University of La Verne (13-3 in SCIAC) on Thursday, February 22nd to take on the Leopards in a semi-final matchup.

In the regular season, Oxy split the season series with the Leopards with each team winning one game in their two matchups. The Tigers will be prepared in hopes of earning the win to advance to the SCIAC Championship to face the winner of Cal Lutheran vs. Redlands on Saturday, February 24th.